April 9, 2011

Says Glenn Reynolds, modeling his "I had an abortion" T-shirt. Would that work? I think the pro-choice side is well-advised to take care of the feelings of those who believe abortion is murder. What is accomplished, on this issue, by forcing people to confront something they find so horrible and are never going to accept?

Here's the ad he's talking about. One thing that seems odd to me is that if you emphasize the importance of government funding for "women's health" more generally — with talk about cancer screenings and STDs — then how do you explain the gender bias? Why should we be all fired up about women's health and not men's health? Is there a special role of government in taking care of women? Why? The sex discrimination is only legitimate if it's based on the real physical difference: the capacity of women to grow new human beings inside their bodies.

Ironically, if you support abortion rights, it is probably because you think a woman's body is her own sovereign domain, and government should stay out of it. But government wants in. Society wants in. One way or another.

194 comments:

Once in a while a leftist will say to me that they think anything between consenting adults should be legal. I usually ask them if that includes wages and benefits; but they always think that letting employees and employers negotiate without government interference is just too perverted.

Ironically, if you support abortion rights, it is probably because you think a woman's body is her own sovereign domain, and government should stay out of it. But government wants in. Society wants in.

No, this is pure BS, except for libertarian women who are pro choice, and they are a tiny %.

Women want to be free to kill fetuses in their own bodies. I think they have that right. But it has nothing to do with most women thinking people own their own bodies; that's the libertarian view, not the liberal view.

Liberals hold this view (keep away from our bodies) only on the abortion issue. You can test this by asking them if they feel the same about women being free to use heroin and coke on their own bodies, or being free to use their own bodies for prostitution, or being free to eat whatever they want without gov't intrusion, or being free to have silicone breast implants, or being free to take prescription drugs without a prescription, or a hundred other issues.

The Daddy State needs your reproductive power UNDER THEIR CONTROL. Making more and more people is a capitalist free market concept based upon faith in the future. Making less people is the no risk way. Don't you people know how much slaves cost to feed and clothe? Running slaves is a higher cost than running High Speed Trains. Only Judeo-Christian wealth creators like a Donald Trump can imagine new people to be a blessing.

From Insta: OPEN SECRET: Planned Parenthood turns tax dollars into donations to Democrats. “It has everything to do with the Democrats’ political health. They would be voting to cut off their own campaign cash, pried from the hands of taxpayers.”

I don't believe for a second that the majority of Libs give a crap about "Women's Health" in the context of abortion. What they care about is establishing that the individual is subject to the whim of the collective, so to speak. Their contempt for the individual reaches it's fullest fruition when they can use the "collective's" money to eliminate a human who they believe will somehow detract from the "community" (or in the case of PP, when their race makes them somehow undesirable).

Show me a woman who is pro abortion, and I'll show you a woman who is against capital punishment.

Even more baldly hypocritical: pro-abortion women who are militantly PETA-esque in safeguarding the continued life and well being of each and every non-human creature, all the way down to snail darters and eyebrow mites.

What I always find frustrating, as a conservative, is that the GOP wants to de-fund a program that I personally think, has a long term benefit. Allowing teens and women access to affordable family planning reduces unwanted pregnancy, and hence, a likely reduction in future entitlement costs. Teen pregnancy, single mothers and their children will always have a severe financial handicap. And poverty remains the top link to poor school performance. It becomes a cycle. I say embrace the fact that Planned Parenthood can have a role in breaking this cycle.

Interesting post, Ann, and great comments. rdkraus and allens, very fine illustration of the myopia, indeed, psychotic split within the liberal head. And the whole "women's health" gender bias was the theme of the message I left at on Senator Reid's Washington office phone yesterday - that the government should therefore also be funding men's health care clinics. (Ha, the secret word I have to type to post my comment is "maniest" I thought at first it said "manliest"! Well I like that!)

And, by the way, I thought there was no federal funding for abortion? I thought that the democrats promised .....

Plus, what is more aesthetically pleasing, prostate health or breast health? Just consider the difference between a prostate exam and a breast exam. Do we want men self-examining their prostates? Eeeeeeeuw.

@lincolnntf, it's not pro-eugenic, it's reality that Planned Parenthood can offer women birth control options that will prevent pregnancies which can dramatically change their lives. I am in no way suggesting that certain classes of people should not be born. I am suggesting that having options for women, especially for those that may not have healthcare or those that can't go to their parents, can help those women avoid some situations that are not in their best interests at the current time. Until all men take a vow of celibacy to not have sex until they are married, Planned Parenthood has an important role.

"What I always find frustrating, as a conservative, is that the GOP wants to de-fund a program that I personally think, has a long term benefit. Allowing teens and women access to affordable family planning reduces unwanted pregnancy,"

Conservatives, by and large, do not play word games.

We're talking about abortion.

And you know it-

And "family planning" is something a husband and wife does together in private.

Play all the word games you want amongst yourselves--

But, if you think you libs are going to co-opt the meaning of "conservative" guess again-

Pediatricians with an adolescent specialty, can do pap smears and prescribe Birth Control Pills and Plan B for teenage girls. Condoms are at every pharmacy and free in our colleges. So how limited is access to women's health?

Every woman knows, when the pregnancy is to be kept you look up a obstetrician. When a pregnancy is rejected by the father and by family, well it's off to PP.

I wonder how many women, young and old, suffer scars, emotional and physical, from the D & C procedure rendering them sterile? Planned Parenthood is a ghoulish operation that preys on women when they are most vulnerable. Worse, it is a lucrative business that lies about the fetus as a group of cells despite what the sonogram shows.

How much of the money provided for Planned Parenthood is laundered back to the democratic party for reelection purposes? Arguably, this is a conspiracy against women to encourage them to be promiscuous then generating a business to deal with the results. I'm disappointed in the number of women who fall for the "Keep your hands off my body" rhetoric. Welcome to the so-called "nanny state' that makes a business of enslaving women as single parents depending on the government.

The government's hands are all over women's bodies and these dependents utter nary a peep.

This post was another one of Althouse's badly aborted attempts at thinking.

The sex discrimination is only legitimate if it's based on the real physical difference: the capacity of women to grow new human beings inside their bodies.

Listen goofball: It also has to do with possessing organs and tissues given to cancer known as "breasts" and a "cervix" which proper screening can prevent - the latter of which used to be a leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. before said regular screening.

At this point your complaint is apparently with the maker whom you pretend to believe in when politically convenient. He made you this way, (H)e made your body and organs that way. (H)e apparently made them as prone as (H)e did to the sorts of cancer deaths that only strong efforts in the realm of public health, facilitated by government, have drastically decreased.

Take your complaints to (H)im for making you this way and to (H)im for making the other citizens in your country (your obvious betters) smart enough to figure out a way to decrease the deaths that they have been implicated in.

Somewhat related, I was shocked (probably shouldn't have been) when I first moved to NC a few years ago and the issue of sterilization was in the news. Up until the 70's, I subsequently learned, the State was still sterilizing "idiots". The State just recently decided on compensation for whatever victims are still alive, but I'm not sure if they've been paid yet.

"Until all men take a vow of celibacy to not have sex until they are married, Planned Parenthood has an important role."

Huh? It's about satisfying the wants of men?

If a man loves a woman, he will accept the product of that love. Which is the child. A human being. That's what sex is really about about on the evolutionary biological scheme of things. Unfortunately things are skewed, and we need more flexibility in education and work for parents young and old. We should have a system that 'punishes' young parenthood.

If your old enough to have sex, well probably you are old enough to be a parent.I think it's abnormal that adults no longer have a the maturity to marry at 20.

I know of a woman who has had seven abortions, she told me herself. She also informed me that she doesn't believe in the death penalty because she doesn't believe anyone has the right to take someone else's life. A good rule of thumb - if someone is pro-abortion he or she will invariably be against the death penalty.

If girls had to pay for their own abortions, maybe there would be less of them.Also, we already provide lower income brackets with financial aid for healthcare.Clearly it is not fair to force individuals (tax payers) who are against abortion to pay for abortion. Turns out the abortion industry pays heavily into lobbying and re-election efforts for democrats. Once again, the tax payers are fleeced for it, and they should be pissed.

@browndog, I am a conservative and i strongly believe in a nuclear family. I do agree that the argument is about abortion and that is different from birth control. And i do agree that Planned Parenthood should probably raise at least part of their own funds, like say NPR (not to equate the two, other than through a fiscal argument). But i think it's wrong to ignore the fact that Planned Parenthood plays an important role for women, outside of abortion. As stated previously, until every man is abstaining or using condoms, i will support PP.

Interestingly enough, Glenn Reynolds then links to a Mary Katherine Ham post that compares the way right-leaning residents of the blogosphere engage moderate bloggers with the way left-leaning residents of the blogosphere engage moderate bloggers, using this blog as one example.

Go through the senators' home pages and see how many, liberal and conservative, have a "Men's Issues" link and a "Women's Issues" link. When I checked during the last presidential election the Men's issues was 0% and the Women's nearly 100% if not.

Marti;What I always find frustrating, as a conservative, is that the GOP wants to de-fund a program that I personally think, has a long term benefit.

I don't think you understand conservatism. It's not about good intentions. The best natural conservative allies for the pro-choice crowd are libertarians. But they're not going to support the federal support, direct or otherwise.

Hey, Ritmo! Your numbers for the Planned Parenthood budget add up to 99%. According to this analysis the one per cent you didn't mention includes $1 M that they spent in support of Democrats in the 2010 election cycle, not to mention the $700K they spend on lobbying, i.e., treating influential lawmakers (mostly Democrats, one suspects) to free dinners at expensive restaurants.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if you're going to take taxpayer money you should be absolutely precluded from lobbying, much less supporting candidates of either party in elections.

How tragically stupid this country looks to the rest of the world when a government shutdown was narrowly averted over.....subsidized pap smears and cancer screenings. Just when you thought this country couldn't possibly get any more fucking stupid than it already is.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if you're going to take taxpayer money you should be absolutely precluded from lobbying, much less supporting candidates of either party in elections.

Since I suspect that arbitrary order is a higher priority than actual reason to the human calculators who walk among us, I'll bite: Exactly what is your perfect "reasoning" for this proposition of yours, (that sounds more like a flawed assumption/premise)?

Also, I'm sure you'd apply that standard to all the subsidy-receiving agriculture lobbies. Just to be neat and orderly about it. Right?

"(T)rillions and trillions of debt" and lincolnWTF goes on about an income of a few million dollars, or less than one-one thousandth of even one trillion. But you heard the man, it's all a "budgeting thing".

Seems like the right wing is comprised of human calculators and greedy prostitutes, but no one capable of making a rational set of priorities. You'd think that with all that calculating and greed, at least one of them would figure out how to plan out a decent argument to throw in front of the American people.

Moral questions aside, am I right in thinking that the legal argument is about determining the point at which a fetus should be considered a human being, and therefore subject to all the relevant legal protections?

And if that were the case (since legislating morality pretty much never works), how about a compromise definition tied to the advancing state of medical technology?

For example, what if abortion became illegal at the developmental point where the medically assisted chances of survival at birth reach a certain percentage?

Arguing about the preferred percentage and how it is calculated would make great political theater...

Oh geez, Piercello! Are you actually proposing that the "single cell = a human being" argument thrown at us by the right wing is flawed? Like that'll ever work! Some guy in Rome told us that there's an actual PERSON inside that cell and this has now become an airtight, watertight, hermetically sealed, proposition that CAN NEVER BE CHALLENGED, EVER! Doing so would be worse than questioning the "intelligent design" theory that lectures us about a powerful finger making all the genetic mutations happen in our lineage (and in our cancer cells, but that's a different story, I guess).

Men and women have sex. Sometimes that sex results in the creation of a new human life. All of the abortions in the world haven't changed that. What the age of abortion rights has done is to convince people that it is their inalienable right to have guilt-free, risk-free sex wherever, whenever, however, and with whomever they wish.

It seems to me that Paul the IVth is arguing that abortion should be a privilege of the rich. Kind of like caviar and executive jets. Money, wealth, abortions.

Whaddaya say, Fellow Conservatives?

If nothing else, that would be a good way to make it clandestine, if not scarce. Everyone knows how reticent wealthy and powerful people like Republican Congressman Bob Barr are to talk about the abortions they've paid their mistresses to have.

Ann's line, "Is there a special role of government in taking care of women? Why?", really hits at the heart of feminism, which is to make women chattel to the government, i.e., the Demo welfare state.

The whole "Do your own thing, let it all hang out" culture of the 60s has produced an unending stream of unwed mothers who are dependent on government services. This is the way it was intended. Planned Parenthood, Himmler's US satrap, merely is a shill in the process and a bag man.

It's also interesting to note how the Libertarians always push the idea Conservatives lose with social conservatism, but never say anything about the fact the Lefties push radical social constructs all the time and seem to win. Problem is, people seem to be realizing abortion is a lousy thing for society to endorse and it's become less appetizing with the aging of the Lefty Boomers.

PS Trickling Down His Leg, in his inane sophistry, forgets that men as well as women, have unique organs (prostate, testicles) prone to cancer, too.

Men not only have organs that are prone to cancer but historically better access to sources of income with which to screen for and treat them. This was not the case when Planned Parenthood came about and if men's incidence of death from prostate cancer hadn't dropped as dramatically as women's incidence of death from cervical cancer, then I guess I guess I could see edutcher's point a little better.

But he did do a good (if sloppy) job trying to argue that having personal autonomy is a good reason not to care about someone. I mean, at least he didn't try to abort that one. He kept with it and pushed it into this world and now we must love it in all its messy sloppiness and despite all its handicaps and shortcomings.

Edutcher has now earned a place as the Sarah Palin in coming up with the Mother of All Bad Arguments.

Great point, Althouse, and one I was thinking about yesterday as I kept hearing about "women's health" and "cancer screening".

Does Planned Parenthood do testicular cancer screenings? Is there a similar group that does that receives government funding? Do they have fundraisers and rallies?

I don't see why women's health is so very different from men's health.

(I have used PP. When I was a recent college grad, my employer kept me traveling so much it was very difficult to try to set up a a relationship with a regular doctor's practice. PP was easy to get into and suited my needs. They did my blood test for my marriage license, too)

I propose that we come up with a prize known as "The Sarah Palin Award", to be given out to anyone who sticks with a bad, handicapped, perhaps even "retarded" or fatally flawed argument, persistently enough to birth it through to anticipated fruition. No matter how much life support or assistance a horrible argument requires, to be able to push on and on and lovingly bring that bad argument to birth (and freedom!) surely deserves a certain kind of recognition. And maybe a Hallmark card.

I’d rather help Glenn Reynolds with other tee-shirt ideas: Pro-Choice Baby Shower – Live the Paradox. Your Social Security Payment was aborted in 1981. 53,000,000 - Safe and Rare. Planned Parenthood: Cavorting & Aborting since 1916. I am sure there are other ideas out there.

Federal law prohibits this. Since 1976 actually. Did you not know this, or as C4 alluded to - you can't argue a point without lying about it?

Its a shell game, Garage.

"Federal funding is given to Planned Parenthood, which can be spent on a variety of things including constructing/renting new buildings, building awareness in the community via advertising, and making things that Planned Parenthood charges for cheaper in general since many of their fixed costs are paid for. Planned Parenthood also performs abortions out of these same buildings, sold to the same people who are attracted to PP via the advertisements, and so on."

Our tax dollars given to PP free up donation money to be used for abortions.

I'm in favor of capital punishment, but I accept the liberal argument that it has in the past been improperly applied. I'm just as glad to live in a society where there is a bias against it. Why can't liberals accept the argument that liberal abortion laws also have their risks? Somehing like gendercide is going on in India and China. You have to have a very sunny disposition to think that no foetus in America has ever been aborted because of its sex. Could some feminist please explain to me why the abortion of millions of females is not a feminist concern?

Defund PP. I have no problem with what they do, but I also don't feel the need to have the taxpayers fund them. Let the celebrities in the commercial and their friends in Hollywood fund it if it's so important to them. They can afford it.

Same with NPR/CPB. If people want it so bad, then they can fund it themselves. The government should have no role in providing entertainment to a select few.

I'm pro-choice but anti-abortion. Meaning I think abortion is the wrong choice to make, but women should be free to make the wrong choice. There are good choices and there are bad choices, and with those choices comes responsibility. I really don't think it's incumbent upon me to bankroll the solution to those bad choices.

So Ann: I am a self-insuring woman in my 40's. The main place where I experience "discrimination" is not in budget rhetoric but on the "open" market, where I have yet in four years of annual shopping to receive a single base offer that includes maternity care. I can purchase a rider if I choose, but it's an expensive option. Also: I have yet to see a plan (other than a $1600/month all-inclusive Cadillac) that covers contraception or contraceptive surgery. Riders are not an option here and the logic is economic: individuals who want contraception will self-fund it on top of their self-insurance.

From a policy (not a medical) standpoint: should abortions be cheaper and easier to get than tubal ligations? And do we want women of childbearing age "self-rationing" maternity care? For women in the self-insurance market we are way past death panels. Want a baby? Good luck. Want to not have a baby? Pay up.

35% to STD treatment and testing, another 35% to contraception, 16% to cancer screening and prevention and 10% to other women's health services.

Really? Tell us how they PREVENT cancer. I'm sure that many doctors around the world would be interested in hearing this.

So.... not that I doubt your figures or suspect that that you just pulled them out of your ass......if they are spending 98% of their income on these services, other agencies would be very interested in hearing how they can operate on a 2% margin. They must not be paying any of their staff anything.

This is how Planned Parenthood works: When I was in college (in the late 60's early 70's) I had no money no insurance, no doctor: I went to PP for birth control pills. Even then, when I was not pregnant I had to listen to someone tell me all about how they could help me get an abortion and how abortion was a good thing. They also wanted to encourage me to use a mirror to look at my the inside of own vagina (no thanks) and that if I spooned yogurt into that area it was beneficial for something or other (no thanks again!!)

Our tax dollars given to PP free up donation money to be used for abortions.

Absolutely, it is a shell game, like you say.

I once worked in the day treatment program of a community mental health center. It was the only program in the center that made a profit from insurance, Medicaid, Medicare and private payments alone. Yet, every year we got grant money for the day treatment program. Money the day treatment program didn't need because we made a profit.

Thus, the shell game. The money the day treatment program made went to support the other programs and services and the grant money went to support the day treatment program. Virtually every non-profit receiving government money does this.

The main place where I experience "discrimination" is not in budget rhetoric but on the "open" market, where I have yet in four years of annual shopping to receive a single base offer that includes maternity care

Baloney. You aren't shopping around. There are plenty of insurance companies that offer maternity care in their insurance options.

Will it cost more than a policy without maternity care? Of course it will because if you use that coverage it will cost the insurance company more money.

You can buy a car without a stereo multi cd player or one with a stereo system. Just plan to pay more for the more delux car.

In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA). Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.

Really? Tell us how they PREVENT cancer. I'm sure that many doctors around the world would be interested in hearing this.

Cervical cancer is caused by a virus known as HPV, which cancer vaccines can prevent. I would believe that at some point, if not already, public health initiatives would encompass such vaccines.

Pap smears won't prevent cancer, but they can alert the clinician to earlier stages of it, including "pre-cancerous" growths. Whether or not this leads to less "cancer" per se or prevents it outright by facilitating removal is pointless (although you could argue this is the case), because it obviously greatly decreases DEATH from cancer - which is something to which I suppose you might be opposed if you were PRO-DEATH or something.

What other silly questions does the orderly person who lives inside a version of the movie "Tron" have for me today?

Thus, the shell game. The money the day treatment program made went to support the other programs and services and the grant money went to support the day treatment program. Virtually every non-profit receiving government money does this.

Yep. Regardless of which side of the political spectrum is its main supporter.

Why argue policy with someone who has decided that your sole political purpose in life is the murder of women, children and old folks?

Really? If you actually felt this way, then I'd LOVE to see all those smashing arguments you've come up with against the "PRO-LIFE" crowd!

Talk about a smugly self-serving title: Pro-life.

Are sperm and egg cells not alive? Are they dead? That's a weird thought but it inevitably follows from the warped illogic and rhetoric of those who talk endlessly of life (in the abstract, not in the singular) "beginning" at fertilization.

Yeah, I get that. But wouldn't they serve the public well by taking off the pink t-shirts and stop talking about being all about "women's health" so men will go there and get inexpensive cancer screenings?

What Fen said.And there are more shell games than Planned Parenthood going.

Plus, the necessity for shell games comes about because of such restrictions as the -76 law passed by the majority over the strenuous objections by liberal Democrats.

And there are such things as threatening hospitals operated by the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis with loss of accreditation if they refuse to perform abortions or provide other means of birth control.A clear 1st Amendment violation.

It also strikes me that my right to control my wallet as part of my sovereign domain is even more self-evident. However, that right is overridden by society in the interest of the common good, such as the State's ability to build and maintain roads, attack Libya, etc. Now, it seems to me that if the liberal Democrats feel that making me pay taxes to subsidise organizations that promote and perform abortions, because of the "common welfare interest," then that also implies a contention that "a woman's womb" is also of interest to the State and subject to its authority under the "common welfare" rubric, nest ce pas?

But wouldn't they serve the public well by taking off the pink t-shirts and stop talking about being all about "women's health" so men will go there and get inexpensive cancer screenings?

Experience tells me that trying to get men into clinic for screenings of their junk when no symptoms are present is difficult at best. One can argue about gender bias, I suppose, but when it comes to health care utilization, in general women are life-long utilizers and men are chronic avoiders until at least middle age.

In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA). Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.

Well, A.J., one reason might be the fact that PP has actually HELPED other women by improving their lives and their health, and without the self-serving self-interested benefit of enriching its executives with the kind of obscene bonuses seen on Wall Street in the middle of a recession that they were in large meassure responsible for bringing about.

But then, understanding how conflicts of interest, selflessness and culpability work is anathema to the Republican mind nowadays, or so it would seem.

Anyway, I'm out to enjoy this fine day before you abortionists attempt another go at aborting my intention of doing so.

One can argue about gender bias, I suppose, but when it comes to health care utilization, in general women are life-long utilizers and men are chronic avoiders until at least middle age.

But a caring government should care about young men's junk as much as young women's cervixes. If the government is going to give money to Planned Parenthood, they could insist PP become a more male-welcoming environment. No more talk of *women's* health and no more pink pink pink.

There is surely an HHS Office of Civil Rights that could investigate the male-hostile environment of a semi-public health facility.

The nation is financially sinking -and all the left care about is making sure women can have a free, tax payer funded abortion.Piss OFF.I'm all for keeping abortion safe and legal – but not free. There should be cost involved.

Also, tax payers should not be on the hook for abortions, specifically. If the left want to crusade for abortion, fine; let them pay for it via left-wing charity. Come on Scarlett Johansoneson – start the "Uber-progs for Free Abortions Foundation". I'm sure Soros could fund it all by himself.Tax payers don't want to pay for partial birth abortions either. In fact, a majority would like to see the practice illegal. Polls indicate full majorities from all political backgrounds understand that partial birth abortion is a disgusting non-essential way to savagely kill an unwanted baby.

If we cannot stop funding leftwing agendas that don't need funding, then how can we do anything about our out of control debt?The fact that we fund NPR is a joke. And GE... and Auto Unions... and Goldman Sachs.. and on and on...

So, just for perspective, how many cervical cancers are you interested in not catching until it's too late and the dear souls burden your emergency room with the need for urgent care (provided by those generous taxpayers) followed by hospice (probably also provided by taxpayers)?

He's only talking about a few thousand deaths of actual living, breathing people. Can't you guys live with that for the sake of a symbolic and miniscule shaving off the budget?

Well, A.J., one reason might be the fact that PP has actually HELPED other women by improving their lives and their health, and without the self-serving self-interested benefit of enriching its executives with the kind of obscene bonuses seen on Wall Street in the middle of a recession

Um, dum-dum, TARP was funded by the party you vote for.

Further, I think you should go on pretending that the executives at PP don't get bonuses.

So, just for perspective, how many cervical cancers are you interested in not catching until it's too late and the dear souls burden your emergency room with the need for urgent care (provided by those generous taxpayers)

Alternatively, we could stop paying for "urgent care" from borrowed federal funds.

Well looks what happens when I go off and do some yardwork. Good 'Ol Ritmo beclowns himself further.

Back at 9:30 you claimed to find my amazon.com profile, but I think you picked the wrong "Mike" -- my browser history would show a lot of looking at mysteries set in Scandinavia -- Henning Mankell's Wallander series (BTW, I think PBS should be defunded for no better reason than Ken Branagh's inept portrayals of Kurt Wallander), Steig Larsson's trilogy, and, lately, Helen Tursten's Irene Huss series. Not to mention my insane pleasure at Janet Evanovich's crazy books.

But it turned out you were pointing to a book about Asperger's syndrome. Is Asperger's a bad thing? Well, Bill Gates supposedly suffers from it -- just imagine how well he'd have done if only his mind worked like an ordinary person's.

There needs to be a bill for a Doomsday Cut in spending. If your budget isn't balanced on time, EVERYTHING automatically gets cut by 50%. Even Congressional pay (and staff). If that doesn't bring it into line, rinse and repeat.

If something really needs that extra funding, too bad. If its that important, Congress should be able to pass a new bill to re-establish funding.

My Catholic friend was explaining to me how the Virgin Mary got pregnant. And, I said to her that if I received such a visit, I'd want an abortion.

Women are subject to their eggs talking. We go through relationships, not making any, until the man arrives and our eggs begin to whistle.

Back in the back alley days, the saddest part of those abortions were the married women with kids. Who had no access to birth control information at all! And, they died. Leaving their children ... like Cinderella got left in the original "fairy tale."

No one has a right to dictate to you that you've gotta keep it! No, you don't.

Italy, by the way, has the smallest sized Catholic families. (Where, once, Mussolini gave prizes to women who came close to getting pregnant every year ... until their eggs quit. And, he celebrated "size" like nobody's business.

As if you really want 17 kids!

But the republican party now owns this issue.

Trump, however, took away the "birther" tag ... and, pounced o something legitimate.How shopworn is this grab to disembowel Roe?

Fat chance. (Or, as you just could'a learned in the match between Kloppenburg and Presser ... with a million and a half people voting. You came out ahead 7,000 votes.)

Republicans need to wear Special Olympic helmets when they go out to do political battles. No wonder you've got the over-tanned guy, who folds "faster than a lawn chair."

Pandering to the cheap seats.

Rumsfeld tells a wonderful story, how he won his House of Representative's seat in 1964. And, when he got to Congress, the GOP only had 140 seats, total. And, some inept old timer refusing to move forward. That's when Rumsfeld found Gerald Ford, to "fight for the minority chair."

Back in the 1800's the Supreme Court already solved the problem of "all religious expression is allowed ... when it disallowed Mormon's from practicing polygamy.

No getting around it. Today the Mormon's are over-represented in our government, because they got kicked in the head, over polygamy. Which was put on par with "wife burning on the man's funeral pier."

Roe made abortions LEGAL. Just as a decade earlier, in spite of all the religious howls, men could by condoms. Pharmacists were no longer forced to keep them "under the counter." And, men would come in to "shop for something else," and then in a low voice ask for condoms, as if they were contraband.

Yes, the GOP is known for being "pro-life," no choice. All it costs are votes. But so what? You can always nominate Sarah Palin to the top of the ticket. (And, right there, you get Obama for 4 more years.)

Is Asperger's a bad thing? Well, Bill Gates supposedly suffers from it -- just imagine how well he'd have done if only his mind worked like an ordinary person's.

Lol. Yeah indeed! Just imagine how well Bill Gates (and everybody else) would have done if he'd actually given credit to the people he stole from, or better yet, came up with the ideas he stole on his own! What a wonderful thing THAT would have been!

Unfortunately, most "Aspies" are like the rest of the population: As uncreative as a TV test screen pattern.

Feel free to forcibly dragging doctor-averse men into the clinic by their junk. I predict violent resistance among that patient population.

What? And women just love getting pap smears?In fact they (we) do not, which is exactly why we have to have the sisterhood of Planned Parenthood and politicians talking about "women's health". And that will never attract men into their clinics.

If Planned Parenthood is about health regardless of gender, make them own *that*. Have Barbara Boxer make that speech.Or let Boxer and the US Government admit that encouraging men is not as important as encouraging women to get cancer screenings.

I think this abstinence message really needs to get out there a bit more. I really do. I mean, if only everyone were more aware of all the joys and pleasures of abstinence, we would have a much more wonderful society. Clearly the practice is either getting a bad rap or suffering from underexposure.

Fen, do you think abstinence education will help stop you and your fellow soldiers from all the man-on-man rape that runs rampant in the U.S. armed forces?

Excluding abortion, PP does provide some very useful public health services. I relaize that gets in the way of painting them as completely evil, but there it is. Reality is only neat and tidy through ideological lenses.

Lol. Yeah indeed! Just imagine how well Bill Gates (and everybody else) would have done if he'd actually given credit to the people he stole from, or better yet, came up with the ideas he stole on his own! What a wonderful thing THAT would have been!

Ritmo, you are just plain evil for trying to start a DOS v. MacOS fight on a thread involving federal funding of abortion through Planned Parenthood. Just evil.

Excluding abortion, PP does provide some very useful public health services. I relaize that gets in the way of painting them as completely evil, but there it is. Reality is only neat and tidy through ideological lenses.

What?As I said, I've used Planned Parenthood's other services. I do not find them evil. Talk about a strawman and ideological lenses!

I'm talking about how important it is to some in government to have "women's health services" but not, apparently, "men's health services". Or, at the very least, to talk about "women's health services" without talking about "men's health services".

A fit was just thrown on Capitol Hill about defunding PP, and how the GOP has a problem with women.My question is where is the outrage about lack of similar services for men? Or the admission that PP also takes care of men? The party of gender parity is trying to have it both ways, no?

So tired of projection by the left of their evils onto others. Conservatives are responsible for the deaths of women? Poppycock. Making people pay for their own abortions isn't the same as saying no abortions allowed. Furthermore, if you can't afford the abortion - keep your pants on!

Liberals are responsible for the deaths of women. Planned Parenthood performed more than 332,000 abortions last year. If 50% of them were females, that means more than 166.000 females had their lives ended by Planned Parenthood. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Pelosi!

This was a nicely made point. I suppose it's logically similar to Althouse's observations on voter fraud's short term vs long term politics for both 'sides'.

Taking this farther than Althouse did: It seems that most people either prefer rights for unborn babies or prefer sex without consequences. The notion of 'stay out of my civil rights' is just a means to an end.

How about PP just quits providing abortions, and keep all the other services?

But that would be rational! And we all know partisan politics has absolutely nothing to do with being rational.

It wouldn't be rational for PP to quit providing abortions unless they truly need the government funding and they don't care about abortion services.For PP to stop providing abortions- which is an important (to them) part of their mission. Stopping that would be irrational.

What would be rational would be for partisan politicians- in this case, the Democrats- to admit they favor PP *because* of abortions, not because of some overhyped need to fund other "women's health" services.

Dysmorphia is such a common complaint among women that it almost might be said to be an integral part of their character. The pain women inflict upon women for the sake of respectability and/or sex appeal surpasses anything that some poor ignorant Taliban could inflict. Tight corsets, girdles, silicone implants, foot binding, genital mutilation: these atrocities happen with the approval and encouragement of women. These crimes did not originate with men.... I fear that we shall get nowhere in this argument until women admit to their culpability in the mistreatment of women. The simple fact is that there are millions of less women in the world because of abortion. On the abortion issue, women are arguing for a position that ultimately undermines their own existence. This argument reminds one of when women argued for the superiority of midwives over male obstetricians. It is far better that a thousand women die of purperial fever than a single woman be subject to some man's sexist prejudices.

I think this abstinence message really needs to get out there a bit more. I really do. I mean, if only everyone were more aware of all the joys and pleasures of abstinence, we would have a much more wonderful society. Clearly the practice is either getting a bad rap or suffering from underexposure.

Marti said...What I always find frustrating, as a conservative, is that the GOP wants to de-fund a program that I personally think, has a long term benefit. Allowing teens and women access to affordable family planning reduces unwanted pregnancy, and hence, a likely reduction in future entitlement costs. Teen pregnancy, single mothers and their children will always have a severe financial handicap. And poverty remains the top link to poor school performance. It becomes a cycle. I say embrace the fact that Planned Parenthood can have a role in breaking this cycle.

Marti said...@lincolnntf, it's not pro-eugenic, it's reality that Planned Parenthood can offer women birth control options that will prevent pregnancies which can dramatically change their lives. I am in no way suggesting that certain classes of people should not be born. I am suggesting that having options for women, especially for those that may not have healthcare or those that can't go to their parents, can help those women avoid some situations that are not in their best interests at the current time. Until all men take a vow of celibacy to not have sex until they are married, Planned Parenthood has an important role.

4/9/11 8:46 AM

Men don't get pregnant, woman do. Its the woman who should practice celibacy. Now as long as abortion is legal and woman are the sole decider of whether or not to carry to term, child support should be optional unless the man agrees to it in advance. If he doesn't agree then she can either abort or support the child on her own. As a taxpayer I don't see the reason or need for me to pay for someone else's child support.

Planned Parenthood had an evil founding by an evil, bigoted and hateful founder, and performs and promotes evil actions and values in this world today. Hitler value evil. Stalin value evil. Pol Pot value evil. Planned parenthood is of the same ilk.

Planned Parenthood can do a million nice things for a million sweet people and will still never be able to separate itself form it's evil beginnings. Never. Anyone associated with it should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the shame thrown their way.

Placeholder said...Ironically, if you support abortion rights, it is probably because you think a woman's body is her own sovereign domain, and government should stay out of it.

It's a freedom issue. This is something the wingnuts can't understand, because the only freedom they care about is the freedom of money.

4/9/11 1:17 PM

So your in favor of indentured servitude (as long as it does not apply to you). Liberals must think money falls from heaven. Maybe they ought super fund NASA and send a fleet of rockets in to outer space with ginormous funnels to scoop up all that cash.

As long as abortions are legal, who pays for them isn't my problem as long as I'm not compelled to pay for them through taxes or by paying otherwise higher taxes by giving tax credit, deductions or other breaks to the donors or providers.

Wrong about the 3 percent of its funds, Mister Hygiene. You don't read carefully.

Of all the PP services, three percent are abortions (receiving an Rx for birth control pills counts as one service; receiving an abortion also counts as one. I assume many of its customers get two or more services at one time). Abortion, however, uses 15 percent of PP's annual budget. That's according to Media Matters, part of your team, not mine.

vasectomy referrals?? They don't pay for vasectomies but want money to pay for abortions? If they pay for vasectomies, the demand for abortions should decrease. Although, looking at the PP website for SW Ohio, it looks like they charge or refer for both abortion and vasectomy.

Liberals have an obsession with equating abortion with women's health.

People who wear an "I Had An Abortion" tshirt should be treated with peace and dignity. They are expressing their views and this is still America. That sort of political expression is good for our country.

I only hope the other anti-abortion folks treat the pro-choice folks the way they would like to be treated themselves.

The old race, class, gender card to expand government favors and selective spending for favored groups.

Oppose women-only entitlements - you hate women.Oppose a 4-acre Monument to MLK in DC and you are a racist. Oppose a 4-acre Monument for FDR in DC on grounds that it is too extravagent and removes too much scarce National Mall green and you are a visionary.Oppose 3 billion a year from US taxpayers to Israel and you are an anti-Semite. But say no aid to Columbia and you are safeguarding taxpayers wallets.

I wonder how many women, young and old, suffer scars, emotional and physical, from the D & C procedure rendering them sterile? Planned Parenthood is a ghoulish operation that preys on women when they are most vulnerable. Worse, it is a lucrative business that lies about the fetus as a group of cells despite what the sonogram shows.

One of my former students had so many abortions when she was younger, i.e. before she was a Senior in high school, that when she did want to keep the baby she couldn't. Very tragic.

It must really tire you out knowing that your buddies are pushing us into default for not getting their way on social policy goals that they lyingly pretend to have any impact on the larger financial picture.

The nation is on the brink of default, and the baggers are pushing for battles on miniscule riders related to women's health, the elderly, the poor. All the while fighting for much larger tax breaks. It's a fucking shame and don't you think the public has caught on.

Meanwhile, the Republican governor of Michigan pushes to give himself Putin-like powers to prevent municipalities in the state from having any local control whatsoever... Your guys are a fucking joke. A big, fat, greedy, authoritarian dictatorship of a joke.

Go suck on all those fucking paper money bills once we've acquiesced to the baggers and gone into default. They fucking love that shit. Once we do, you're really gonna love mob rule. You know which of these fuckers are going to be garroted first.

Marti said:As stated previously, until every man is abstaining or using condoms, i will support PP.

What, are all these fathers raping all these women? Seems to me that the mothers are willing partners.

Many of Planned Parenthood's problems with conservatives would go away if they were to give up abortion, but they won't. They entice poor minority women with birth control, knowing full well that abstinence and sterilization are the only fool proof birth controls. Women get pregnant, and Planned Parenthood makes money.

I heard of a minority woman in Louisiana fighting against a Planned Parenthood clinic in her local high school. Finally, she agreed on the condition that a similar clinic would go into a predominantly White high school. The proposal for the minority high school getting such a clinic died. Planned Parenthood is a product of Margaret Sangers "Negro Project". Hard to escape its roots.

MartiWhat I always find frustrating, as a conservative, is that the GOP wants to de-fund a program that I personally think, has a long term benefit. Allowing teens and women access to affordable family planning reduces unwanted pregnancy, and hence, a likely reduction in future entitlement costs. Teen pregnancy, single mothers and their children will always have a severe financial handicap. And poverty remains the top link to poor school performance. It becomes a cycle. I say embrace the fact that Planned Parenthood can have a role in breaking this cycle.

So Marti, is there any evidence whatsoever that Planned Parenthood is helping break this cycle? Where? Have you noticed that Black women end disproportionately more pregnancies through abortion than White or Hispanic women? Don't you like Black babies? Planned Parenthood has been far more effective than the Klan ever was.

marti said, Planned Parenthood can offer women birth control options that will prevent pregnancies which can dramatically change their lives.

Ha! Show me a pregnancy that doesn't dramatically change a woman's life. Pregnancy happens. It means you will, if nothing interferes with the process, have a baby. People who have 17 children know that and accept it.

Carol said, As if you really want 17 kids! You sound like Obama right before he suggests that if you can't afford $4 gas, you should buy a new car.

For what is worth, before 1930, all of the main line Protestant churches agreed with the Catholic Church on birth control, and how the marital act was for having children, and was to be in marriage. At the Lambeth Conference in 1930, the Anglicans decided that sex for recreation and sex for procreation could be considered two different things. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear that they are not two different things.

Margaret Sanger and her Negro Project meant to decrease the number of minorities and other "undesirables" through eugenics. She was pals with some of Hitler's friends. Margaret knew that they would need to recruit Black pastors to convince the Blacks that this was for their own good.

Separating sex of recreation from procreation demeans us all. As the line from Chicago: "Stay away from jazz and liquor, and from men who play for fun." Women can now be a man's disposable play thing. And if she gets pregnant, well that becomes disposable as well. We are all demeaned.

So if a woman wants an abortion, the husband or boy friend can do nothing to stop her. If she wants to keep the baby, he has to pay. There are plenty of stories of women telling the man she is using birth control when she wasn't. Or of fishing a used condom out of the trash and impregnating herself. He can pay later.

I read somewhere that the divorce rate for Catholic couples using natural family planning was around 4%. Wowser.

When a woman becomes pregnant, her body is no longer sovereign to herself any longer. That's a fact. She is has now joined harboring the life of another human being, her child and the child of the father, who by the way contributed part of himself for that privilege. The notion of 'abortion' rights is offensive.

Instapundit just posted a link to "What You Need ... Is a Hybrid Van". http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/04/what-you-need-is-a-hybrid-van/

Forget condoms. Their suggestion for birth control? "In the meantime, families approaching the five-passenger Prius limit may want to consider purchasing the most effective birth control method known to man: a “World Of Warcraft” subscription."

By the way, is President Obama trying to make the guy feel bad for having a large family?

"So Marti, is there any evidence whatsoever that Planned Parenthood is helping break this cycle? Where?"

There isn't. Of course.

This is where I feel that the underpants gnomes are so very brilliant. You see that gnome-type thinking over and over in so many settings. Step two is always skipped over, somehow. And then no one cares or bothers to check if step three ever happens at all.

"Have you noticed that Black women end disproportionately more pregnancies through abortion than White or Hispanic women? Don't you like Black babies? Planned Parenthood has been far more effective than the Klan ever was."

Sanger was a disgusting person, certainly. But even by *her* definition of "profit", which would be the reduction of the non-desirable elements of the population, has she got what she wanted?

I see no evidence of it.

At least (and I say this entirely sarcastically) the reservation doctors who secretly sterilized native american teenagers who were at the clinic to get their tonsils removed managed to threaten the viability of the race itself. Does abortion reduce ultimate family sizes? I don't see that it does. It just kills untold numbers in the mean time.

My firm belief is that women would have the exact same number of children, at least on averages!, without abortion at all.

Attach a mandatory tubal to free and legal abortions and find out how many of those women don't actually want to have children or are willing to curtail their actual fertility. (And how many parents would be willing to bully their daughters if it meant no grandchildren ever.)

I'll bet *my* plan would "end the cycle" pretty darn quick as women who didn't want children *yet* or *now* aggressively pursued birth control. Yes, birth control fails sometimes, but very seldomly. And anyone who got an elective abortion would never get another.

Abortions would be "safe" and "rare". And ultimate family sizes would be no bigger. Not a bit.

Some big name political guy recently made the comment that abortion had messed up Social Security. I think he meant that due to abortion we have fewer workers to contribute to Social Security. But just think, if family sizes had been larger, there would have been more children to care for their parents. Maybe then, more parents would need less in the way of Social Security because their children would be taking care of them. Well, that dog ain't gonna bark.